


The Truest Account of That Enigmatical Wayside Flower

by Bow



Category: Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Genre: F/M, Mental Illness, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bow/pseuds/Bow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marguerite always felt that behind Percy's apparently slow wits there was a certain something, which he kept hidden from all the world--and most especially from her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truest Account of That Enigmatical Wayside Flower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotesse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/gifts).



_the bravest gentleman in all the world_

How she laughed, how she laughed; at such times Percy's mother seemed further away than even his father--and she had gone where no letter could reach her. She cursed, she threw whatever was to hand, she called her son by his father's name. And Percy was always there with her: with no one fit to run the household, the servants shirked their duties during Sir Algernon's long absences. Percy could hear them whispering about Mama in the hallways: they claimed that she had been rendered a simpleton by her terror of the marriage bed and the birth of her child. They sniggered and called her an imbecile.

But Percy knew that wasn't so: no one who truly looked into her eyes could believe that there was only emptiness behind them.

And, too, Mama had other moods. There were whole evenings when she was quiet and tender toward Percy, when she would stroke his hair and stare at him with the somber eyes from her portrait. At rest, she still looked as she did when Boucher had painted her: calm and very beautiful, but with a countenance that hinted at something lurking, unrevealed, within her.

The girl who had once been Mama's lady's maid caught Percy crying, and whispered to her companion that the son would soon follow the mother. 

The next time Sir Algernon returned from his travels, he found his household in a different order. Percy now commanded the servants with authority, looked after his mother, betrayed none of those vulnerabilities that had formerly made Sir Algernon feel uneasy about him. 

To the father, an explanation seemed simple: while he had been away, his son had grown into a man. But to Percy, the truth was more complicated. Mama could not take care of herself. She relied upon Percy for comfort, and so he must protect her. In a way, Mama had been the one to lead Percy to the solution. He had learnt by from watching her that one could present a certain face to the world outside, a vacant, satisfied stare that concealed weakness and insecurity from public view.

It became the first of the masks he that would come to wear with such aplomb, the earliest and most effectual of his disguises.

~*~*~

_the cleverest woman in Europe_

Like bells or icicles: cool and clear and ringing. He was transfixed by her laughter before he ever gazed upon her pretty face. Percy searched the faces at the _salon_ until he discovered the source of mirth. She turned to face him, and he was lost to her: this actress in the first brilliant flush of her beauty, standing before him in her own apartment in the Rue de Richelieu. 

Her blue eyes sparkled; they overflowed with wit. He peered into them and felt giddy. Her nearness unleashed in Percy a desperate, headlong emotion that he could not repress, that reminded him of what might be locked inside him.

This woman was clever enough to see through everything, Percy knew. If only she set her keen wits to the task, Marguerite St. Just would unearth all the secrets he had walled inside himself. 

She would know him: a man who daily risked his skin for strangers, who concealed the truth of his motives from everyone, even from the League of men who had pledged to die for him.

She would know him: a man who presented himself to the world as nothing but surface, because he dared not expose the defects that might dwell beneath. A man who saw his own likeness within his mother's painting and feared to learn how much deeper the connection might run.

She would know him: a man who had feigned inanity for so long, who had gone to such lengths to do so, that he was no longer certain whether it was merely a feint.

But Marguerite would know him, and he welcomed her knowledge, as a ship welcomes a port in a storm.

By his side, Marguerite was surrounded by other admirers: the most brilliant and talented men in all of Europe crowded round to kiss her hand and laugh at her sallies. And yet, when the perfect rosebud of her mouth formed a smile, it was Percy to whom she raised her eyes.

~*~*~

_the biggest fool in England_

Sir Percy brought his lorgnette to his eyes, threw back his head, and laughed: a lazy, inane braying sound that irritated his wife even from across the ballroom. Through his glass he watched her mouth twist itself into a frown. Of all the habits of stupidity that Percy assumed, it was this one that plagued her the most. In company, Marguerite levelled her sharpest jests against it. In private, she had ceased to acknowledge it with more than a shake of her head.

Since his marriage, Percy had learned well that cleverness did not imply kindness: sharp wits, after all, must have something to sharpen themselves against.

He had not revealed himself to her. For Marguerite had denounced the St. Cyrs; the entire family had gone to the guillotine on the strength of her testimony. And then Percy's new wife had demanded that he believe in her innocence even while she refused him a word of explanation.

So he had chosen not to lift his mask before her: those stories that he had wished to make into confessions must remain secrets.

~*~*~

_the truest account of that enigmatical wayside flower_

Percy woke aboard the Day Dream. He was still too weak to leave his private cabin--or at least, that was what Marguerite had insisted when he attempted to procure a change of linen.

It was their first private meeting since they had watched the dawn together after Lord Grenville's ball, since she had made her own confessions to him, since they had spoken to one another without concealment.

The waves of the Channel rocked the Day Dream in a regular rhythm. Percy lay back in bed and looked up at Marguerite. Her eyes, when they met his, sought out his secrets. She reached out to stroke his hair, and he began to tell her the story from its start.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, summary, and section headers taken from the novel. Thanks to my beta!


End file.
